I am loving all the new and returning shows that I am watching this fall. Sunday Nights are ridiculously well stocked with top notch television – Dexter, Californication, and Entourage are the returning champs; True Blood and Mad Men are new on my list.

Since the whole gist of this blog is that I talk about being a mom and housewife in a luxury driven city I just have to post today about The new season of the Real Housewives series. This time Atlanta is the city and husbands and daddies are music moguls and pro athletes, and all but one of the wives are black. I have to say that at first I am more impressed with these women than any I have seen on this series, because they are TOGETHER. And when I say together, I mean they all have full staffs running behind them to tend to every task, so they can get together and party and have fun. No neurotic micromanaging for this crew – they hire real professionals to do the work, and things run quite smoothly MOST of the time.

Central to this season’s story line are Lisa Wu Hartwell, wife of NFL player Ed Hartwell, DeShawn Snow, wife of Cleveland Captains’ Eric Snow, Kim Zolciak, the kept woman of a man she calls Big Poppa in order to keep his identity a mystery, NeNe Leakes, wife of Big Daddy style real estate tycoon Gregg Leakes (my personal favorite couple), Sheree Whitfield, formerly married to some rich athlete, currently in settlement negotiation and she ain’t nice.

We’re now three episodes into the life of these women and they are much more socially intertwined than other seasons of the franchise. We already know that in spite of the fact that Sheree (pronounced Shar – ay, who throws herself a birthday that she calls a fashion extravaganza) thinks that NeNe (who I LOVE, and who is a real sistuh) is socially, intellectually and fashionably inferior to her, she claims that they are old and dear friends. Such dear friends that she forgets(hmmm.) to add her name to the guest list of her birthday party and causes NeNe to be stared down by bodyguards, thus sending her back out into the night, furious, despite the pleadings of Sheree’s publicist that it was a gross oversight. Kim ( whose hair really looks like a wig) is NeNe’s date, so she’s out too, and running what appears to be interferance that that is typical for their group.

Lisa is the little dynamo, with a real estate business, general deal making and supermommery to her name, along with a clothing line and painting – I say she’s on something like ritalin to keep that pace, since she claims to have given birth nine months ago. DeShawn is the good Christian wife and philanthropist, and the newest to the Atlanta scene. We see her enter her new home, outfitted entirely by interior designer and contractors with directions from a two hour phone call (remember no micromanaging) and just loves it. I loved watching her give directive to her acting estate director as to whether or not the in laws would be allowed alcohol during their upcoming visit.

Supsequent episodes have yielded a $16,000 birthday event for Kim’s eleven year old which she spends most of the time worrying if Sheree and NeNe will catfight when they inevitably arrive. DeShawn undertakes a very ambitious event to raise money for her charity.. Biggest personal drama yet is that of NeNe, who after seeing a country psychic who told her that she would get a letter somehow related to her father, and then she receives – you guessed it, a letter from her aunt alleging that her dead beat dad was not really her dad anyway.

Looking forward to the DNA test!

I’m embarassed to say how excited I am right now – I just stood next to Joan Collins in line at Whole Foods! She’s really lovely, and beautifully dressed, just like one of her characters would be while shopping on a Sunday afternoon with her handsome son? / lover? for supper’s ingredients before being whisked away in her Rolls to the mansion. I would never guess her age, as she looks to be in her forties.

I love my neighborhood.

L’Oreal Paris Studio at the Beverly Center was the place for the book launch of Mompreneur Nina Sutton last Friday evening. The Chic Mom’s Guide to Feeling Fabulous is Sutton’s “actionable” advice on how to feel chic after everything has changed. Reading through the book and clicking around her site gives one the idea that she would like to help ALL Moms feel a bit more beautiful, as we are faced with the realities of birth and raising children, while we see celebrities bouncing back from these life changing events effortlessly. Leading up to the book, was her web site, Deals for Divas, as Nina has years of experience with health and beauty product advice and marketing, and has been featured on many national talk shows and ad campaigns. She knows that we all need to save, but without sacrificing our love for health and beauty. She was a tiny bombshell, dressed in a diva pink silk wrap dress, all perfect hair and nails, and as sweet and friendly as could be.

The place was packed with some very milf-y moms, drinking champagne and waiting their turn for mini makeovers by the experts of the L’oreal Studio. I’ve always thought L’oreal makes great product, and creating their Studios showroom is genius, because you can get an inexpensive, yet fashion forward product, applied by trained professionals. The most unique feature of these studios is that they can replicate any lighting condition to reflect how the makeup will appear, including some area nightclubs! How awesome to get a Project Runway – quality makeover at a drugstore price.

And the Deal Diva agrees.

I created this work of art with the Jackson Pollock tool – a great way to get your clicks!

This is a great little refresher course on the earmarks of the English style

Must’ve had something to do with that having a baby business. According to the post date, it was introduced around March of 2007. At that time I had utterly no interest in anything other that English Tudor, Mediterranean, and English Georgian (for my clients) OR in baby blue and apple green (for the Critter’s room).

I’ll bet this would be great to have for a tailgate party!

…it occurred to the perfect Husband and I that we haven’t yet had a party in our home that was a grown up cocktail party since the Critter was born. As if by spontaneous combustion, Calibamanancy* of CityMommy, having offered to host a get together at her home for visiting CityMommies, had a flood, water damage, and mold. Her house went under construction immediately. I said to the Husband, “Honey let’s have a party now! what better reason than to have all the mommies (and a few of our usual crew) for cocktails?” ECatherinegrey* came from Alabama, Marilynn* came from New Zealand, and they all arrived, all the CityMommies, minus any ruffled feathers over political arguments, grateful over help with kid stuff, curious to meet those we haven’t yet met in person. Although I’ve met most of the CityMommies, there still were a few I didn’t know, and meeting them reminded me of internet dating, before I met the aforementioned perfect Husband. Like the husband, I was thrilled with the result, everyone was prettier and even cooler than I had hoped!

Who says you can’t get anything good off the internet?

The party was to be held from 4:00 pm until 6:00 pm, our last guest left at 10:30 pm. Just the way I like it!

*CityMommy screen id names

Bah, Critter had the croup for the third time last week, so my posts were few. We did manage to attend two noteworthy events on Sunday.

My very fabulous designer friend Carlos Alberto of The Skyline Studios was chosen to create a model unit at EVO South. The much-anticipated LEED certified highrise community opened last weekend in downtown LA, just blocks from the Staples Center. To celebrate this collaboration, Carlos created an eco-friendly interior design theme called “EVOLution” which will be available as a turnkey package exclusively to EVO South residents. In the design world “turnkey” is short for “we do everything for you and you just turn the key and live there”. No doubt he will have backorders galore – simple, elegant, with interesting organic detail – makes me want to throw away all my bullion fringe and bibelots and start from scratch!

Even though it’s been two years since I was a bride, I assured my registry consultant Joseph that we would stroll by Geary’s of Beverly Hills for their bridal event, which was, in the vernacular of all bridal planners, “to die”. I registered all my china, silver and crystal at Geary’s when I married my perfect Husband, and I love to peruse their immense stock of formal service pieces along with the incredible jewelry they house, which includes modern design along with estate jewelry. Guests were treated to an informal bridal gown show from Claire Pettibone accented by jewels from Michael Beaudry, chocolate pastries event doyenne Mindy Weiss, and magical floral design from Luna Gardens. The place smelled divine and it almost made me want to get married again!

I promised the Husband that if he would buy me a full length white mink and matching hat that I would renew our vows for our tenth anniversary at the Ice Hotel. I wonder if I can bring Joseph, Mindy Weiss and Luna with me?

…which I’m convinced are evil. REM and the B-52’s however, are the BOMB! I’ve been rocking out to them since they were selling it on vinyl. I love the Kate Pierson muppet so much!

Just because it’s cool and I wish I could play it on guitar – someday…